Donald Trump won both the electoral college and the popular vote in the 2024 presidential election. In fact, Trump this year became the second Republican to win the popular vote since 1988.
The vast majority of counties have seen their margins change in the direction of Trumpboth in places where Republicans are historically successful and in places where Democrats generally have an advantage.
At the same time, Trump’s margins – both in raw votes and percentages – were small by historical standards, even over the past quarter century, when close elections were the rule, including election recounts. in Florida in 2000 and Trump’s two previous elections in 2016 and 2020.
Trump’s victory came without much of a boost for struggling Republicans. The current narrow margin in the House of Representatives is set to continue, and Democrats have won four Senate elections in key battleground states, even though Vice President Kamala Harris lost those states to Trump.
On his victory party, Trump declared that “America has given us a powerful and unprecedented mandate.”
But Wayne Steger, a political scientist at DePaul University, said the election sent mixed signals.
“Inflation, immigration, some evidence of backlash against Democrats on identity politics, crime, education, and public sentiment moving in a conservative direction all suggest a Republican victory,” he said. declared.
Still, “I tend to view this as a close election in which there was enough anti-democratic sentiment to carry the day.”
Here’s how Trump’s victory compares to other recent presidential elections:
Reasons why Trump calls it a big victory
Trump won all seven contests this year Battlefield States – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris, on the other hand, fared worse in these states than President Joe Biden did four years earlier.
Trump’s margins of victory in these seven states were – easily – wider than the margins of the seven closest states in the 2020 Trump-Biden election and any close presidential election this century.
Including votes counted through November 19, Trump’s collective margin in this year’s seven battleground states was about 760,000. For comparison, the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore – decided by the Supreme Court after a week-long recount in Florida – produced collective margins of about 46,000 in the seven closest states, or about one-sixteenth of more than in 2024.
Trump also performed well by historical standards for someone who ran against the party occupying the White House. Since 1932, only six other out-of-power party candidates have received a share of the vote as large as Trump’s, close to 50 percent. Others with a higher percentage were Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, Jimmy Carter in 1976, Ronald Reagan in 1980, Barack Obama in 2008 and Biden in 2020.
Trump’s margin of victory in the Electoral College – 312 of 538 – was nowhere near the landslide victories of Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Richard Nixon in 1972 or Reagan in 1984. But it was larger than four of the seven elections of this century, including that of Biden. four years earlier.
Where Trump’s victory seems historically small
However, other indicators show that Trump’s victory was narrow.
Measured by both vote percentages and raw votes, Trump’s margin of victory is modest, even compared to other close elections this century.
For votes counted through November 20, Trump’s margin over Harris was 1.62 percent. That’s smaller than any winner since Bush in 2000, when the margin was 0.51 percent. Going back further, only John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Nixon in 1968 won the popular vote by smaller margins, 0.17 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively.
Using raw votes, Trump’s margin was also smaller than in any election dating back to 2000. At around 2.5 million, it was the fifth smallest popular vote margin since 1960.
In percentage and raw vote terms, Trump’s margin is on track to be less than half Biden’s margin four years earlier.
At the same time, there is ample evidence that Trump’s strong performance at the top of the ticket did not greatly favor unsuccessful candidates.
Of the seven battleground states, five also held Senate elections and one held a gubernatorial race. The Republican candidate won the Senate race in Pennsylvania, but the Democrat won the Senate races in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, as well as the gubernatorial race in North Carolina. In North Carolina, Democrats also won elections for lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction and were narrowly ahead in a race for the Supreme Court of the state.
As the latest elections are called, the U.S. House of Representatives is on pace to find itself at or near its margin from the previous two years, producing a narrow Republican margin by historical standards. In state legislatures, Republicans have gained only modestly in terms of control of the chamber, while Democrats have made inroads in other legislatures.
“Trump’s victory was solid and convincing,” said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin. However, “the 2024 elections did not constitute widespread support for the Republican Party. Many Republicans who were rejected in the elections did not perform as well as Trump.”
So far in this century, elections have not only been close, but they have also swung between parties. Since 2000, control of the presidency, the Senate or the House has shifted 16 times in 13 electoral cycles.
If this trend continues, Democrats could be in a good position for the 2026 midterm elections and perhaps for the 2028 presidential election.
“Voters are unhappy with the state of the country,” said Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. “Unless Trump causes a sharp shift in the national mood, Democrats have a good chance of succeeding in the 2026 midterms.”
